1. Field of Art
This invention relates to a doll, and more particularly to a doll with fastening means attached to its hands to enable the doll to hold objects or to hold onto a mating fastening means attached to another doll or object.
2. Summary of the Prior Art
Dolls that are capable of holding objects are notoriously well known. Such dolls usually have hands that are shaped to hold a rounded object or a rounded portion of an object between the thumb and index fingers by means of a resilient clamping action between the thumb and index finger or by merely creating an interference fit with the object to be held.
While such a doll construction can provide hours of fun and enjoyment for a child, this type of construction is severely limiting as to the types of objects the doll can grasp and hold onto, and with age and wear, the dolls hand members attain a permanently stretched apart condition, after which the ability to hold objects is greatly diminished or entirely lost.
Moreover, with the dolls of the prior art just described, it is typically not possible to have the doll's hand removably attached or fastened to any portion of another doll. Generally, any object to be held in the doll's hand must be cylindrically shaped and rather slender at that, and finding such a geometrical shape on the clothing of another doll, or placing such an object on the clothing of another doll, would constitute extremely remote possibilities.
There is a refreshing trend these days to teach children the values of friendship and cooperation between people of all ages, races, and religions. However, other than merely designing "look alike" dolls that have features that suggest different races, the doll manufacturing industry has utterly failed in being able to communicate and teach such ideals to young children through the use of dolls in a "pretend" world.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art of doll manufacturing to produce a doll which has the ability to hold objects by its hands reliably, firmly, and lastingly. Furthermore, there is a clear need for an introduction into the doll world of dolls that can simulate the kind of friendship as demonstrated, for example, in the recent "Hands Across America" program. The 1984 Olympics, the "Hands Across America" program, and the 1986 "Goodwill Games" are leading examples of the teaching of worldwide friendship values, and these values can be instilled in young children with little or no "teaching" effort on behalf of us adults as parents, if the values of morality and friendship are experienced directly by the children in their daily playing with their toys. A doll which can hold its arm around another doll, and in fact, a number of dolls lined up in a row each with it's arm around it's neighbor on either side, would be an extremely valuable teaching tool for the very young. The present invention satisfies all of these apparent needs of the art of doll manufacturing.